Govt to Soon Launch Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage Mission: NITI Aayog

The government will soon launch a carbon capture utilisation and storage mission with incentives ranging from 50-100% as the country tries to strike a balance between rising energy demand with its climate goals while depending on coal.

Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) is a process that captures carbon dioxide from industrial sources and power plants before it enters the atmosphere.

The captured carbon dioxide is then transported to either be utilised in various products like chemicals or fuels, or permanently stored in underground geological formations, such as depleted oil and gas reservoirs or saline aquifers.

Speaking at the 17th India Coal Summit organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC), Rajnath Ram, Advisor (Energy), NITI Aayog, said, "We are going to launch the CCUS mission very soon, where... incentives like 100% government funding will be provided to some of the technology. The incentives may range from 50% to 100%." He further said these incentives will help industries adopt carbon capture technologies and integrate them with coal-based energy systems.

With the growth in the economy, the energy demand is also expected to go up, he said, adding that the "growth of energy demand would definitely require the multiplication of supply side of energy".

While coal is considered to be one of the important constituent of our total primary energy supply, a lot of renewable energy is being installed into the system.

"But there are challenges related to it... If you really want to integrate the renewable energy into the system, there are other costs involved. You have to parallelly bring the storage that may be costlier," he explained.

NITI Aayog had earlier said CCUS also has an important role to play in decarbonising the power sector, given the country's present reliance on coal for meeting over 70% of its electricity needs.

Even if India is able to substantially green the grid and meet the target of 500 GW installed capacity of renewables by 2030, there would still be a need to meet the baseload power demand from fossil fuels (most likely coal) or other dispatchable sources, given the intermittency and non-dispatchable nature of solar and wind power.

India's per capita carbon dioxide emissions are about 1.9 tonnes per annum, which is less than 40% of the global average and about one-fourth of that of China.

There is a need for sustainable solution for the decarbonisation of sectors that contribute to 70% of the emission. CCUS has an important and critical role to play in it, especially for India to accomplish net-zero target by 2070.